


the remembrance of it is painful unto us

by Aethelar



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Head injuries have consequences, M/M, Memory Loss, Post BoFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Oh, Bilbo.” Fíli’s voice cracked and he turned away, his face twisted in grief. Bilbo pictured Kíli falling, his mind shying away in horror from the idea that he had died, that Kíli was gone, never to smile or laugh or love him again. He closed his eyes, waiting to hear the words that would surely spell his end. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“The arrow wound healed, Bilbo. It’s been healed for seven years.”</i></p><p> </p><p>Bilbo wakes up after the battle, desperately searching for Kíli. His head is bleeding and fuzzy and there's something very wrong with him, but that doesn't matter. Only Kíli matters, he has to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the remembrance of it is painful unto us

**Author's Note:**

> Writen for Aida's Kilbo week on Tumblr.

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. His head throbbed with pain, and his hand, when he lifted it to check, came away wet with blood. He sat up, taking a moment to hold his head and wait for the world to stop spinning.

“Yavanna’s grapes,” he cursed softly, trying to piece together what had happened as he struggled to his feet. The battle, he’d been in the battle. He remembered diving away from Gandalf, hacking his way unseen through orcs as he struggled to… To… _Something_ , something important. And then the eagles came, and everything vanished in pain and blackness.

“Looks like I missed the end then.” His gaze swept the battle field, the strewn bodies sparking memories he’d rather have forgotten. He saw that elf being gutted, watched in horror as his entrails spilled out into the churned up mud. Over there, he saw Bifur raise his boar spear and bring it down through an orc’s skull, yelling something incomprehensible in Khuzdul. There, that’s the corpse of a warg that he killed, sticking Sting through the soft flesh underneath its jaw. His jacket is still stained from the blood of the Man – boy, barely more than a boy, that had been crushed in the warg’s jaws. And over there, where the orc corpses were the thickest, that was where he’d seen the Durins fighting, seen Kíli take an arrow in his back and collapse in pain.

“Kíli,” he breathed, face going white as he sank to his knees. He’d been fighting to get to Kíli. Fíli’s roar of anguish echoed in his ears and the world tilted around him, darkness creeping across his vision.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. His head throbbed with pain, and his hand, when he lifted it to check, came away encrusted with dried blood. He sat up, taking a moment to hold his head and wait for the world to stop spinning.

The battlefield was stark, laid out before him in a field of death. “Looks like I missed the end then,” he muttered, his gaze sweeping the strewn bodies – all orcs, their own dead and wounded collected and brought home. Memory flickered; he saw Kíli crumple, falling to his knees with an arrow sticking out of him.

“Kíli.” He pushed himself up, reeling from light-headedness as his heart thundered in his ears. “I’ve got to find Kíli – I’ve got to – Kíli.” He took a deep, steadying breath that hurt his ribs and tried to focus himself. He’d been trying to fight his way through the battle to Kíli. He remembered Gandalf shouting his name as he tumbled from the horse’s back and plunged into the seething mess of limbs and blades, Sting flashing against anyone who stood in his way as the ring slipped eagerly onto his finger.

The tents. The tents were where Kíli would be, they weren’t far now. He dragged himself forwards, his legs stiff and uncooperative beneath him as though he’d been crawling for hours already. His mouth felt dry and his throat scraped against itself as he swallowed against the nausea that turned his stomach. It felt like he was dragging himself forwards by will alone, his arms burning under the strain as his legs refused to work.

He lay down for a moment, sprawled in the mud with his face turned to one side so he wouldn’t drown in it. Just for a moment. Just to catch his breath.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. His head throbbed with pain, and his hand, when he lifted it to check, found the rough linen of thick bandages. He sat up, taking a moment to hold his head and wait for the world to stop spinning.

“Bilbo!” Someone pressed a cup into his hand, water sloshing over his fingers as he struggled to grip it.

“I need to find Kíli,” he pleaded, voice hoarse and cracking painfully against his sore throat.

“Drink, you can see him later.” Strong hands closed around his, lifting the cup to his lips for him. He downed it like a dying man, taking great, greedy gulps and not caring about the water that trickled down the side of his mouth and left his collar uncomfortably wet.

“More,” he rasped when it was finished. “Please, more.”

His cup was refilled from a large, earthenware jug, and he fought to remember why it would be wrong to throw the cup away and drink from the jug instead.

“Drink it slower, mind,” the someone – Bofur, he knew that hat, that was Bofur – told him. “You’ll make yourself sick. I’d bring you something to eat, but Oin says we’ve got to be careful, after two days of nothing like that. It’s lucky we found you, you know? Nori did it, almost tripped over you, he said, you with that magic ring of yours…”

Bilbo leaned slowly back against the cot, the half-drunk cup slipping from his slackening fingers. He thought he heard Bofur catch it, but couldn’t be sure. _Kíli_ , his mind protested fuzzily as darkness claimed him again.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. His head throbbed dully, and his hand, when he lifted it to check, found the rough linen of thick bandages. He sat up, blinking as his vision took a moment to settle into stability.

“Kíli,” he gasped, lurching forwards. He stumbled, his knee jabbing the edge of the cot and his reaching hand knocking into a cup of water on a small table by his head. Sounds filtered in through the haze of confusion, the quiet hubbub of people passing by the tent and the gentle crackle of a low fire in the corner.

“How did I…?”

Canvas slapped against canvas as Oin pushed his way through the tent flap, his wizened face dropping into a scowl when he saw Bilbo sitting up.

“Lie back!” he barked, bustling over to press Bilbo gently but firmly back into his cot. “You’ve a nasty head injury there, Master Hobbit, and I’ll not see you aggravate it any further. I’ve enough of these foolish antics from the lads, I don’t need the same from you.”

“Kíli,” Bilbo pressed urgently. “He was hurt, you’ve got to go out and find him – ”

“Kíli is _fine_. If he’d just stay where I put him, he’d be finer still. Now, drink this.” He handed a cup of something sweet smelling and lukewarm to Bilbo, helping him grip it when his hands wouldn’t stop shaking long enough to do it himself.

 _Drink it slower, mind_ , Bilbo remembered, but he couldn’t place where from.

“I need to see Kíli,” he slurred as the warmth of the tea dragged him down into sleep.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. His head ached, and his hand, when he lifted it to check, found the smooth linen of fresh bandages. He sat up, blinking as his vision took a moment to settle into stability.

“Bofur!” he cried in delight when he saw his friend, languidly smoking a pipe in the chair next to him. “You’re not hurt! Did you bring me here?”

“Nary a scratch,” the dwarf replied, happily brandishing his bandaged arm. “And that’s nearly healed right, too.”

“And the others?” Bilbo pressed anxiously. Kíli, he remembered Kíli had been badly hurt – he’d taken an arrow, Bilbo had seen it from the edge of the battlefield. “Kíli – is Kíli alive?”

Bofur chuckled around his pipe. “Still alive,” he agreed merrily. “Still annoyed at Oin’s fussing and driving his uncle mad with his impatience.”

Bilbo stopped listening after the first two words, his brain stuck on _still alive, Kíli’s still alive._ He struggled to the edge of the cot, hauling himself out of it. “I have to see him.”

“Here now, Oin’s orders that you need to rest,” Bofur said with a frown. Bilbo dropped his feet over the side of the cot and tried to stand, gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs the action caused.

“Here, I got you.” Bofur slung one of Bilbo’s arms over his shoulder, lifting the hobbit to his unsteady feet. “Just a short visit,” he told Bilbo. “And don’t go telling Oin I’ve been helping you escape again or he’ll have my head for it.”

“I won’t,” Bilbo promised, and gripped Bofur’s shirt with a trembling hand.

The walk to Kíli’s tent was mercifully short, but by the time they reached it Bilbo’s vision was darkening alarmingly. He was more being carried than walking when Bofur finally pushed aside the tent flap and staggered into the tent.

“Bilbo?” he heard an achingly familiar voice ask, and almost cried in relief.

“Kíli,” he breathed, leaning into the dwarf’s gentle touch. He felt Bofur pass him over, positioning his arms over Kíli’s shoulders as though he were no more than a faunt’s doll, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He buried his nose in Kíli’s chest and revelled in the fact that the dwarf was alive.

“He’s fine,” he heard Bofur saying over his head. “Just wanted to see you, but I think he’s still worn out from his visit this morning.”

Kíli’s arms tightened around him, and Bilbo drifted off into contented sleep.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. A heavy weight across his chest pinned him down and for a moment he was gripped by panic, imagining it to be an orc corpse or the blood flecked body of a warg. He struggled, trying to throw the dead weight off him and scramble out, but it only gripped him closer.

“Calm, Bilbo,” Thorin said gruffly from across the tent, and Bilbo froze. He was not on the battlefield, as he had thought – he was in a tent, a large one with four cots and a desk. Kíli was sprawled beside him, a soft smile curling across his face. It was his arms Bilbo had felt, his arms and a leg thrown across him in the careless, childish way that Kíli slept.

For a moment, Bilbo stared, an immense feeling of relief washing through him. He had thought – he had seen – Kíli had been hit, but clearly it hadn’t been bad. Kíli was fine. His mind slowed from its racing panic, allowing him to notice the other pressing detail of his situation.

Thorin was in the tent.

Bilbo twisted to face him, staring at the dwarven king with wide, frightened eyes. His body was tense to the point of pain, his hands shaking as he fumbled with the blanket. Should he try to leave? He wanted to stay, Yavanna knew he wanted to stay with Kíli, but he’d been banished – Thorin had been so _angry_.

“What in Arda is the matter with you now?” Thorin asked, huffing in frustration as he set aside the papers he’d been reading.

“Do you want me to go?” Bilbo squeaked, the words almost sliding together as he rushed them.

Thorin frowned, and Bilbo saw him as he was at the gate, brows drawn low and eyes lit with hatred as he snarled promises to kill him. He flinched, but Thorin’s tone was laced with despair rather than anger. “You still think yourself unwelcome?”

Bilbo blinked, taken aback by the words. He almost wanted to ask why he should not, but fear held his tongue. Thorin shook his head, shoulders bowed as though under a great weight and his face suddenly seeming older than his two centuries.

“I never thought that one so small could cause such pain,” he said lowly, almost under his breath. Bilbo doubted the words were for him to hear; if they had been, then he had no idea what they meant.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. He yelped as he saw Kíli’s face, hovering a mere breath above his own and split into a wide grin.

“Kíli!” A smile spread across his face, heartfelt and lovesick. He had worried that he would never see him again, he had dove into battle and fought through armies to get to him, and now Kíli was here and grinning and _alive_ – he felt he would burst from relief and happiness. “What are you – the _arrow_ , Kíli, the arrow – ”

“Oh, stop fussing.” Kíli wrinkled his nose, though the grin stayed in place. “It’s almost healed now, barely even a twinge.”

 _It can’t have healed overnight,_ Bilbo wanted to protest, but Kíli chose that moment to start kissing his way down Bilbo’s chest. He felt his face flush in response and he squirmed in the soft bed covers, stomach muscles jumping as Kíli’s rough stubble brushed over them. His mind flashed back to fumbled kisses through the bars of Thranduil’s dungeon, a night stolen in Laketown when his skin was fever hot and Kíli held him close, a moment among the gold when Kíli rolled him over and pressed him against the gems – but nothing like the leisurely, predatory way that Kíli was trailing his lips down Bilbo’s stomach, fingers drawing lazy circles on his thigh that left fire in their wake.

“Kíli,” he gasped, his back arching and his fingers gripping the bed for stability. Kíli groaned, looking up at him with dark eyes blown wide with desire.

“Every time,” he said wonderingly, pressing a kiss against Bilbo’s hip. “Every time, it’s like we’re doing this for the first time.”

“Doing – ” _what_ , Bilbo would have said, but Kíli’s mouth closed around him and his words dissolved into a strangled shout.

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. He shot up, eyes wide as he remembered – the arrow, flinging himself off Gandalf’s horse, the desperation of trying to reach Kíli before he died. He struggled against the heavy furs on the bed and flung himself towards the door. His legs shook, knees all but crumpling beneath him and making him grip the stone wall for support.

“Yavanna’s sake,” he muttered, gritting his teeth against the pain as he hauled himself forwards. He couldn’t afford to be weak, he _needed_ to be strong for when he found Kíli – his world could fall apart then, but for now he legs needed to pay attention and his knees needed to hold him up so that he could find his dwarf.

“Bilbo!” Fíli said in surprise, hurrying over to help Bilbo stand. “What happened? Where’s your cane?”

Bilbo gripped his jacket, willing his hands to hold still. “Kíli, I need to find Kíli,” he pleaded. Fíli’s face sank into sadness, his youthful energy fading away and his expression falling into well used lines and wrinkles.

“Kíli’s fine,” he said with an infinite gentleness. “He’s in Mirkwood, talking to the elves. You’re in Erebor, and no one’s banished you or asked you to leave.”

Bilbo frowned, his mind groping for an explanation. He couldn’t be in Erebor, Thorin had forbidden it, despite what Fíli said – and Mirkwood? Why? They’d left Mirkwood, he’d got them out of the dungeons. Why would Kíli go back?

“The arrow?” he asked, voice small and pathetic even to his own ears.

“Oh, Bilbo.” Fíli’s voice cracked and he turned away, his face twisted in grief. Bilbo pictured Kíli falling, his mind shying away in horror from the idea that he had died, that Kíli was gone, never to smile or laugh or love him again. He closed his eyes, waiting to hear the words that would surely spell his end.

“The arrow wound healed, Bilbo. It’s been healed for seven years.”

-

Bilbo came awake slowly, the world swimming into vague focus in front of him. He lay still for a moment, cocooned in furs with a warm weight against his back and a strong arm flung over him. _Kíli,_ his mind yelled at him. _Kíli was hurt, find Kíli._ But another thought, or feeling, or fleeting memory held him back, though he couldn’t pin it down. Besides, he was so tired. It would not hurt to lie still for a few moments longer, surely?

A stray thought occurred to him and he raised a shaking hand before him, squinting through his strangely poor vision to see if he was wearing the ring. He didn’t think he was, but he couldn’t quite tell – and his fingers, why were they so bony and thin?

A knock shook him out of his thoughts, and a voice that he thought he recognised called through the door.

“Kíli? You awake?”

The person behind him groaned, rolling away from Bilbo and flinging the furs back with a yawn. “’m awake,” he mumbled. Bilbo froze, staring at Kíli’s back as the sleep mussed dwarf pulled on a rich blue robe and finger combed his hair into a semblance of order. _Kíli_ , he mouthed, his lips turning up into a smile of relief. If he’d been wounded by the arrow he wasn’t showing it, his steps sure and confident as he strode to the door with no trace of a limp.

“What do you want, Fee?” Kíli slurred, pulling open the door. A dwarf stood outside, an ornate crown sat atop his golden mane and sapphires woven into his full beard. Bilbo ducked his head, certain that, whoever this dwarf was, he would not appreciate being stared at by a hobbit – and certainly not by the betrayer, the burglar who stole the arkenstone.

“Council meeting, Kíli. Fifteen minutes, thought you could use the reminder.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kíli waved off the note of reprimand in the other dwarf’s voice, not embarrassed in the slightest at his state of undress so late in the morning. “I was just thinking. I’ll be there soon.”

The golden haired dwarf’s face softened, and familiarity niggled at the edge of Bilbo’s memory as he glanced subtly over the edge of the blanket at him. “How is he?”

“He’s fine,” Kíli answered shortly, a bite of defensive anger in his voice. “Same as he ever is, just sleeping more.”

“Kíli – ”

“I said we’re _fine,_ my King.” Bilbo suppressed a jolt of surprise and grief, because if this dwarf, this golden dwarf with the sad face who Bilbo thought he knew – if he was king, then where was Thorin? Had he died on the battlefield? Where was Fíli, why wasn’t Kíli king?

He was barely aware of the door closing and Kíli coming back to slump on the bed next to him. He glanced up at his dwarf, the sense of wrongness only rising. Kíli was… different, but he couldn’t say how. Wearier. Tired and drawn, and something was screaming in Bilbo’s mind but he couldn’t tell what it said.

“We’re fine,” Kíli muttered into his hands, and Bilbo didn’t believe him for a second.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr! Come find me at [aethelar.tumblr.com](http://aethelar.tumblr.com)


End file.
